Over the past two years, upwards of $1 billion has been raised by private-equity funds seeking to buy servicing rights in the secondary market.

Loan officers, so far, have been spared the layoff carnage, but that may change depending on where volumes wind up.

The firm estimates that upwards of $300 billion of MSRs are currently on the auction block with another $1 trillion to $2 trillion to come.

Nationstar's new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission offers little in the way of information on the terms of the new $1 billion facility.

PHH saw its share price spike late last week after rumors spread that it may sell a large block of mortgage servicing rights.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago has announced a partnership with Ginnie Mae to issue securities guaranteed by the secondary market agency and backed by home loans originated by member financial institutions. The new conduit product, “MPF Government Mortgage-Backed Securities,” provides another secondary mortgage market outlet for lenders originating mortgages insured by the FHA or guaranteed by the VA or the Rural Housing Service. Low-volume lenders that currently lack direct access to the secondary market are expected to benefit from the new FHLBank program. MPF GMBS would allow lenders to ... [1 chart]

Residential mortgage REITs held $327 billion of single-family MBS at the end of the second quarter, according to a new market analysis by Inside MBS & ABS.

Rates for non-agency MBS and consumer ABS are expected to trend lower after the Federal Open Market Committee pulled a fast one on Wall Street this week by contradicting an expected “tapering” of its asset purchase program. Instead, the nation’s central bank announced it was continuing its ongoing purchases of $40 billion worth of agency MBS per month and $45 billion in longer-term Treasury securities. Prior to the FOMC’s meeting this week, the consensus view was that the Federal Reserve would pare monthly purchases of Treasury bonds by $10 billion and agency MBS by $5 billion beginning in October, according to analyst Isaac Boltansky at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC. “The housing sector has been...

Lenders and issuers already comply with most of the requirements in the recently re-proposed rule on risk retention as well as the disclosure standards under the proposed revision to Regulation AB, according to a former Treasury Department official. Darius Kingsley, currently a managing director and co-general counsel at JPMorgan Chase and former chief of Treasury’s homeownership preservation office, said the risk-retention rule will likely prompt increased issuance of non-agency MBS. “I think it’s...

Commercial banks and savings institutions held $165.8 billion of non-mortgage ABS in their portfolios as of the end of June, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of call report data. Second-quarter ABS holdings were up just 1.3 percent from the end of March, but it was enough of a gain to establish a new record for the industry. Compared to a year ago, bank and thrift ABS holdings were up 4.6 percent. The aggregate portfolio was...[Includes one data chart]